RANDOM VIDEO GAME NEWS - NOW IN 5$ LOOT BOXES

[ShadySands]

I don't think they'll shut it down any time soon but I can see them putting the game in maintenance mode sooner than later. It already has the slowest content drip of any MMO I've played. They can't even put out new content to capitalize on the movie releases.

[marelooke]

Oh, BioWare can modify the engine, and they did, heavily so in certain parts. It's just a messed up pile of garbage that is essentially unfixable except by relplacing it - compounded by the fact that BioWare acquired it in a very early stage, but the current ones aren't that much better anyway, and IF who bought all the rights to the Hero Engine from Simutronics is in financial dire straits and has been for a while now.

But to what degree can they modify it? Clearly not deep enough to fix any of the major issues, which would make sense, as messing with the internals would mean they'd make their upgrade path even harder, not to mention that at that point the might as well have rolled their own.

 

And actually BioWare has done an impressive job with it. It's just not noticable because hotfixing that requires some downtime is ridiculous in this day and age, especially when compared with Blizzard who can hotfix parts of WoW on the fly. Idea Fabrik, before their problems, offered the "HeroCloud" service where licensing the Hero Engine was relatively cheap for a cut of any future profit of the game - and hosted by IF, on their servers, maintained by their engineers.

 

Patching something in the HeroCloud had a one week preparation requirement and always came with a downtime of at least 8 hours. And this was with the most current version of the engine, in 2015... with, uhm, 7 years after BioWare acquired the engine specifically because it was supposed to allow live game development (i.e. the option to change the game assets in real time while playing, which is why it makes for really good rapid prototyping, see TSO).

 

Oh and IF promised DX11 (yes, 11) support for the Hero Engine years ago. As of mid-2017 it was still... on the roadmap. Go figure.

They appear to have licensed the engine based on marketing speak. Given the humongous budget for the game I can't help but feel they'd have been better off rolling their own.

 

I'm not going to argue that the technical feat of making anything worthwhile out of what appears to be an utter disaster is anything short of amazing. The realization just makes me even sadder about what could have been if they hadn't stuck to using an engine that clearly wasn't up to the task, something which I'd imagine should have become rather obvious early on but wasn't acted upon for whatever reason.

 

Either way, over 3 months after the release (I'd have to dig to find out the exact timespan, I think it was actually closer to 6months) most endgame content was still utterly broken. Some hard mode dungeons only worked half of the time and the same was true for raids.

I'm a rather patient person (also: Star Wars \o/), the rest of my guild wasn't quite as patient so by the time the game was playable I had a nice solo guild and I quit shortly after (tried it again later, but the magic had gone). I imagine the same story was true for many that played the game on release.

[majestic]

As I said what I know of the Hero Engine and the way other games using it went (Faxion Online lasted three months) I'm pretty sure the problems run so deep that they are, essentially, unfixable. Not without what amounts to constructing a new engine anyway. Back when SWTOR was released and the game got a lot of flack for the engine IF (or someone from Simutronics, not sure) came out of the woodworks and claimed that BioWare licensed a very early version and insisted on finishing it in-house, blaming the poor performance on BioWare.

 

Oh and yeah, we had a nice little "what could have been" in the dedicated SWTOR thread not too long ago. So much... wasted potential.

 

Loved the raids though, every second of it. Asation and the Dread Palace rank among the most atmospheric experience I've had in MMOs. Mechanics and difficulty wise games like WoW were ahead, sure, but in terms of pure enjoyment and game world integration BioWare was just so much better than everyone else.

 

You're also right of course, the first few months were difficult for players. Most quit, understandably. It certainly looked like EA forced an early launch to not miss the holiday season and to capitalize on WoW's somewhat dwindling subscriber base at the time (Cataclysm was a terrible addon). Also I once read an interview with some of game designers that worked on SWTOR where they thought they had two or three months before enough people reached maximum level and seriously participated in the endgame.

 

Well reality ensured and players were 50 two or three days after launch. 's just another case of game developers not knowing how their own game plays.

[ShadySands]

It was and still is the fastest leveling MMO I've ever played

[Labadal]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/850696222/bevontule-altar-of-roots/description

 

Check out this game. Looks really cool and has a demo.

[Melusina]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/850696222/bevontule-altar-of-roots/description

 

Check out this game. Looks really cool and has a demo.

 

Awesome.

 

Does Microsoft plan to buy EA and Valve? I think microsoft can have EA, but if he buys Valve, I will then surely boycott steam.

[injurai]

I read about the Microsoft thing as well. I think they could only afford to buy one. EA could at least be a hostile takeover. Valve would have to be a private sale.

 

EA seems like the better acquisition to bolster the Xbox 1st studios. Valve would be better to reclaim their PC side of the business. It's clear why they are interested in both.

 

I'd rather them buy EA and leave Valve. But Valve hasn't done much for me since Portal 2... so there is that issue.

[ShadySands]

Why though? Gaben is from Microsoft

[IndiraLightfoot]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/850696222/bevontule-altar-of-roots/description

 

Check out this game. Looks really cool and has a demo.

Thanks for the tip. Although I'm a bit post-KS, I just had to back it. It looks beautiful, easy (as in a good way), and it has turn-based combat (with a fresh take) while being a huge open world CRPG.

[majestic]

I read about the Microsoft thing as well. I think they could only afford to buy one. EA could at least be a hostile takeover. Valve would have to be a private sale.

 

EA seems like the better acquisition to bolster the Xbox 1st studios. Valve would be better to reclaim their PC side of the business. It's clear why they are interested in both.

 

I'd rather them buy EA and leave Valve. But Valve hasn't done much for me since Portal 2... so there is that issue.

 

That would fuse Origin, the Windows store and Steam into one massive market behemoth over night. The prospect is as terrifying as it is hilarious.

 

But Microsoft + EA + Valve = 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. HL3 confirmed!

[Bartimaeus]

I read about the Microsoft thing as well. I think they could only afford to buy one. EA could at least be a hostile takeover. Valve would have to be a private sale.

 

EA seems like the better acquisition to bolster the Xbox 1st studios. Valve would be better to reclaim their PC side of the business. It's clear why they are interested in both.

 

I'd rather them buy EA and leave Valve. But Valve hasn't done much for me since Portal 2... so there is that issue.

 

Valve seems unlikely, given Gabe Newell owns 100% of the company and seems to hate(?) Microsoft, or at least dislike them. Also, Microsoft purchasing Valve would probably be pretty terrible for mainstream gaming, given Microsoft's abysmal attempts at trying to control the market so far.

[injurai]

I agree.

 

Which is why I mentioned that with EA, Microsoft has the option for a hostile takeover.

[Mamoulian War]

When we came to the state, that MS buying another publisher on their way to world domination, is considered as a good thing, it says a lot about the current AAA gaming production :-D

[Katphood]

Maybe Sony should buy Valve?

[Malcador]

So more stuff from the next WoW expansion is being released (read: datamined) and there's so much cool stuff that I'm wondering why on earth are they marketing it as boring 'humans vs orcs' to the point of making some people incorrectly think it's a PvP expansion.

 

We've got one continent that's all H.P. Lovecraft Innsmouth and sea priests and witch-hags building living wickermen and another continent that's massive Mayan temples of gold except the Mayan-proxy trolls have domesticated dinosaurs, mummies and dinosaur-mummies. Baby King Anduin and the revolving door of Warchiefs can suck it, they're not close to being as cool as Kul'Tiras and Zandalar and Blizzard is seriously dropping the ball with their marketing this time.

 

Well, marketing for BfA hasn't really started, I'll have to take a look at that stuff - mainly been listening to the datamined music.  After Legion, which was pretty fun, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on all this.

 

[redneckdevil]

Maybe Sony should buy Valve?

Sadly I think Sony is more interested in their insurance

[HoonDing]

"Maybe Sony should buy Valve? :p"

 

Gaben got more money than those goldfish farmers

[Orogun01]

"Maybe Sony should buy Valve? :p"

 

Gaben got more money than those goldfish farmers

Sony sells more than video games, its made trillions of dollars on 2017. Steam made only a minuscule fraction of that.

[Malcador]

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/7373-Battle-for-Azeroth-Developer-Q-A

 

WoW BfA Q&A (random code, aw yeah)

 

 

PvP

• Solo Queue is unlikely to be in Battle for Azeroth.
• If you could solo queue, it would blur the distinction between ranked PvP and regular PvP.
• In other games that have solo queue, there is a lot more flexibility to change your composition. WoW isn't nearly as flexible.
• Solo queue would produce a frustrating experience.
• Playing with partners adds a lot of depth and social interaction.

Oh yeah, socializing with the average WoW PvPer is really what I want to do.

 

09/21 release date (well on or before that date).

[majestic]

• "Bring the Player, not the Class" is one of the misinterpreted things of all time. It was a response to a completely degenerate situation, back when there were no raid wide buffs, they were all party based.

 

Uh, sure. That wasn't at all about Blizzard mishandling what could have been a decent response to class necessity in raid setups. Party only buffs weren't an issue way back during Wrath and that was before "bring the player, not the class" started. Bring the player, not the class substituted certain class based raiding slots for parsing based raiding slots. Or in other words, why bring a shaman if a mage can bloodlust as well, is more mobile and does more dps?

 

Except for the cases where encounter design "fixed" that. Our hunter once had to flop out his undergeared rogue for Valiona & Theralion heroic. Cuz bringing the class to that encounter trivialized it (well technically it trivialized the added mechanic of the heroic difficulty level).

[Azdeus]

Oh yeah, socializing with the average WoW PvPer is really what I want to do.

 

09/21 release date (well on or before that date).

Hey! That's hurtful! ;_;

[ShadySands]

Anthem officially delayed til next year

[Katphood]

[injurai]

I wonder how much the Anthem delay has to do with Microsoft rearing it's acquisition head. The more they invest to do it right, the more they can inflate their future valuation. Plus they could argue a collaboration would increase the value even more.

[Keyrock]

The cynical part of me wonders if the Anthem delay has anything to do with coming up with a nefarious clever scheme system to milk suckers dry give their valued customers a sense of pride and accomplishment while avoiding another PR disaster.